Main menu

Last week, we made you choose between a Triumph Stag and a Triumph TR8, and the molten sulfur that covers the floor of the Hell Garage got a bit hotter than usual. But those V8-powered British sports cars, great as they are, have a somewhat limited following these days. What you need is a project that all your friends -- even the ones who don't care much about cars -- will think is really cool, so that they'll pester you without mercy about your slowness in getting it done. That means one of the nimble little sporty coupes of the late 1960s/early 1970s, the ones that remind us of a time when the little enthusiast coupe weighed less than 2,500 pounds: the BMW 2002 and the Datsun 510.

These days, you can find any number of obsessively restored 2002s (for five-figure prices) and 510s with big fender flares and SR20DET engines (for five-figure prices), but we're looking for utter hoopties diamonds in the rough, the kind of project that can turn $15,000 and years of work into a very nice $10,000 classic.

A round-taillight 2002 for a thousand bucks or less? Yes, but...

When you're shopping for a 2002 to restore, you might as well focus on the early ones with round tailights and chrome bumpers, not the Malaise Era cars with hideous 5-mph crash bumpers. Unfortunately, the examples you'll find for reasonable prices tend to be possum condominiums a bit rough around the edges … but we won't let that stop us!

A little searching of the List of Craig brings us this 1970 BMW 2002 in Tennessee (go here if the listing disappears), and this is one of those cars that requires a healthy dose of optimism in a buyer. Sure, it's rusty, and it's bashed to hell, and the interior is trashed, but the price is only a grand. Actually, in the refreshingly honest words of the seller (who violates the traditions of Craigslist car ads by writing in complete sentences with proper spelling, capitalization, and punctuation), "$1000 is firm if you are a moron!"

Even if you don't have the cash to buy this car, no problem -- the seller will take "boats, guns, other car projects, gasoline powered scooters, motorcycles, big home stereo speakers, vintage stereo receivers, professional grade automotive equipment and metal fabrication equipment" in trade. The seller states that he works on BMWs and Mercedeses for a living, i.e., some customer probably dropped this car off at his shop and then ran out of money.

A little metal repair here, a fat wad of cash to your upholstery shop there, and in many years before you know it, you'll be driving a showroom-condition 2002!

It's an authentic 510 with the correct engine. Needs work.

Even though the Datsun 510 coupe's original sticker price was much lower than that of the BMW 2002 ($1,925 versus $2,982 for the least expensive version of each car in 1970), project 510s these days tend to cost quite a bit more than project 2002s in similar condition. So many 510s rusted away to nothingness, or were hooned to death during the 1980s and 1990s, that the few that remain today fetch big prices. Oh, sure, you can buy a Nissan Violet badged as a 510 for the U.S. market after the real 510 was discontinued in 1973, and it will be dirt cheap, but we are not interested in those imposters. No, we're going to find a genuine P510 coupe for you. Say, this 1971 Datsun 510 coupe in Oregon (go here if the listing disappears), which is being offered for a "price reduced" $3,000.

This listing will allow us to return to hallowed Craisglist traditions of punctuation and spelling, not to mention photography. Here's the description: "Runs good ...... no back seatbelts she has new tires and the l20b moter she need some serious tlc a lol on the rusty side.needs starter... love this car but sience I've had kids don't have the money or time for her .....cash only!!! Serious buyers please! No emails don't ever check email."

So, it's a rusty, non-running Datsun that has probably logged 50,000 miles just doing donuts in mall parking lots during its lifetime. There's one photo taken on a real camera (backlit by the sun, so few useful details are visible) and then three more photos displayed on a computer monitor and then shot from a shaky cellphone camera. Ah, Craigslist tradition!

On the plus side, the glass seems to be intact, it has the correct L20 engine, and it has no flares, scoops, spoilers, Lambo doors, or any of the other originality-destroying modifications so popular on these cars. A liberal application of cash for rust repair, some air-freight from Japan for hard-to-find trim pieces, and you'll be well on your way to a perfectly restored 510.